


Orbital Motion

by callmecathy



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: M/M, Season 2, poetry references, relationship insecurities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-27
Updated: 2015-01-27
Packaged: 2018-03-09 08:52:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3243671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmecathy/pseuds/callmecathy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John barely remembers what it is to be loved. </p>
<p>(In which some things come easily, others don't, and John thinks they're what Harold might call a 'work in progress'.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Orbital Motion

**Author's Note:**

> Poetry references from Walt Whitman's _Song of Myself_.

I.

Without the force of gravity, an object in space will move perpetually forward, on into eternity and oblivion.

Given something to orbit, on the other hand--

Harold's bustling through the small area of their workspace, removing the photo from the glass board, depositing the stack of books (673-42-8579) onto a shelving cart. He's content, cheerful even, and happy in a way he so rarely is.

It's a good day, with crises averted and lives saved (and minimal violence, since kneecaps don't actually count). They're both still warm from the success of it. That, and maybe the swell of air in the Library, leftover from Summer, and the slant of sun through the windows glinting so brightly against the glass board John has to squint.

Maybe more than that, even, and as John narrows his eyes and leans against the wall and watches Harold, limned in shade and gold, he has to admit that yes, it is more than the air and the success, and far more than the sun.

He says, "Thank you."

Harold pauses. His brow furrows. It doesn't matter how many times he's been told this: he still doesn't expect it, even now. John doesn't know how to make it take. John doesn't know a lot of things when it comes to Harold, including how to resist his gravitational pull.

"Thank you for giving me this," he tells him.

Harold goes still. He reaches up to smooth at his lapels, then his cuffs, then up to adjust his glasses, abruptly uncertain in a way he so rarely is. He says, "What I would give you, John," and falters, and then John has crossed the space and is kissing him.

 

*

The crash room is bright, sunlight skating in between the high, dusty windows and over the neatly-made bed.

Harold takes one look at it and says, "Not here."

_Here_ turns out to be the dimly-lit reading room next to the reference section outfitted with a wide sagging sofa which is bumpy in all the wrong places. Harold undresses with an efficiency that better suits the army and an ease that only comes from the cover of darkness, and now isn't the time to convince him otherwise.

He touches the base of his neck, where John can just make out the long line of a scar and says, "No questions."

John says, "Okay."

 

*

It's awkward at first, made more so by the haste that makes his movements jerky, makes his hands slip and fumble.

Harold catches them with his own. He stops him. He says, "I'm not going anywhere."

It's hard to believe. Harder to believe he ever dared to want this, and the fact that he can have it nearly brings him to his knees.

It's better after that, when John forces himself not to rush, when he presses him down into the cushions and spreads his thighs. When Harold hums approvingly, then breathlessly, and says "John" wonderingly even if John can't fathom why.

John's no wonder.

But Harold's mouth quirks, determined in that way he gets when confronted by an unsolved problem, and he touches him carefully, and deftly in all the right places, and reverently and it's that that finally brings him over, until white-out pleasure drives even doubt from his mind.

 

*

When he wakes the air is still, and the space beside him is empty.

He rolls to his feet. Harold's clothes are gone, too, as are his shoes and his phone and his glasses. John's already spinning through worst cases scenarios, the death-spin cylinder in Russian Roulette.

It clicks to a halt when he sees the square of cloth on the nightstand.

Blue, striped with silver. Silk. The calluses of his thumb catch on the fabric when he runs his hand across. He tucks it into his coat pocket.

The cadence of a keyboard drifts faintly through the hallways. He stops in the doorway leading into their workspace, hesitant because Harold hasn't seen him yet and John wants to hold onto this while he can; hesitant because Harold could delete this with a shake of his head, could cut him down with a word. But his coat pocket is warm, and full and he scuffs his foot against the floor as he enters.

The rhythm of typing sputters. It stops, then resumes.

There's a question there, unvoiced yet lent credence, if only in the twitch of Harold's fingers and the slight arc of a shoulder.

John is not, he realizes, the only one who has felt doubt.

He steps behind him and drops his hand onto that same shoulder. Harold leans a fraction, up into the touch. Their eyes meet in the reflection of the monitor and John knows.

The answer is, invariably, Harold.

 

 II.

They barely see each other over the next few days, when work on their cases changes the length of the days from twenty four hours to forty two, and conversation across the comms is limited to names and locations, and warnings when the amateur hit men tracking their number get too close.

It's a long time to go without seeing him, made longer by what they are now, or what he suspects.

It's not that he-- he knows, _knows_ that once Harold makes up his mind he rarely diverts from his course. That doesn't keep John from worrying he's the exception to the rule, that the longer he's away the more time whatever it is between them will disappear.

(Sanity comes in the form of the reminder in his pocket, in a square of silk cloth.)

Eighty one hours and two numbers later, as well as one or two kneecappings and several very sternly-worded warnings, John makes his way up the Library stairs.

It's all too easy to pretend that he's waiting, but the code running on the screen implies otherwise.

"I thought we were done for the night."

"There are some loose ends I have to take care of."

"Are you planning on sleeping?" John asks, casual as if he's not asking.

"For the time being, no."

He hesitates, caught on the sting of rejection, and doubt and what if Harold's _changed his mind--_

"I would like to," he says, turning slightly. "But I really cannot leave without attending to this."

He's close enough now to get a look at the screens, at the video feed. The 'loose end' is apparently the warehouse he was at earlier in the day. The explosion doesn't white out the camera before his figure comes into view. "So much for covert," he says.

"You weren't subtle," Harold agrees, too resigned to be annoyed. He taps a key that begins scrubbing the feed from the police databases.

John isn't being covert when he goes out amidst the shelves and comes back with a dusty book in his hands. He's not being subtle as he slides down with his back braced against the side of Harold's chair, either, or pillows his head lightly against the side of Harold's thigh.

Harold tenses. The keyboard creaks and the typing stops and his hand ghosts briefly over the top of John's head. He holds in a breath, testing, _testing_ until finally the weight returns, fingers coming to settle in his hair, stroking lightly.

He breathes out. He flips the book in his hands and goes straight to the middle, because beginnings are easy and endings are dull. "Not words, not music or rhyme I want, not custom or lecture, not even the best. Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice," he reads, and grins at Harold's startled huff of breath. "How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd over upon me, And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my barestript heart."

"I'm sorry," Harold interjects. "Is this supposed to be self-referential?"

"And reached till you felt my beard," John continues, "and reached till you held my feet," and tilts his head up in time to see Harold blush.

 

*

One of the days there's no number, Harold calls him at six O'clock in the evening and asks him to come to an address at his convenience. He says it in a rush, not really asking, and John sets his book facedown and pockets his gun and his car keys as he leaves.

"Come in," Harold says, waving him inside.

John steps past him. Harold looks fine. No injuries. Dressed nice, which is to mean he's dressed less with the academia overtones and more like he's going to the opera. He's nervous at the edges though and John says, "What's wrong?"

Harold blinks at him. It's a fair question, considering.

"May I take your coat?" he asks, in lieu of an answer.

John frowns at him, but holds still as he slips it off him and hangs it on the rack beside the door.

This safe house is different from the others: dark mahogany and deep-toned rugs, and spare, clean lines. Every single piece of his real estate serves a purpose, has a decor to match the given alias: the unassuming messiness of Burdett, the unsubtle chrome and stainless steel of Partridge, the quirkiness of Paine. This one is, unmistakably, _Harold_ and it unfurls something deep in John's chest.

Harold has stopped in the middle of the hallway, hesitance in his expression.

There is no crisis. This is, unmistakably, a gift. Months he'd looked for this place (and had Fusco look). John's not sure when it is they started allowing themselves to become vulnerable, only that it was before that first time in the Library. Only that he hadn't considered the possibility of the two of them until after he'd let his guard down, which matched up just about right: he'd only really gotten past Harold's guard after he stopped trying.

John says, casually, "It's a nice place."

There's relief there now, and Harold's shoulders ease as he turns back down the hall. "Study," he says, motioning vaguely at the rooms as they pass, "bathroom, living room. It's not particularly large."

"Don't like the extra space?" John guesses, well-used to military-sized confines. The windows in the living area are wide, unhindered by hedges and he scans the streets for movement.

"You don't need a great deal of it when you live alone."

Another sincerity, another unexpected gift on an unexpected evening. Possibly an explanation as to why John's here.

The full answer comes soon enough, when they reach the dining room: it's small, filled with more of the same mahogany, and the table is set for two. A roast waits in the middle.

He stops.

"I didn't cook it," Harold says all at once, as if that's more of a gaffe than inviting someone over without giving them the real reason why.

As if it would actually matter even if he had. "Pretty sure we're going in the wrong order," John says. They're not normal but even he knows that normally the dinner part comes before the sleeping together.

"Yes, well." He adjusts his glasses. "Better late than never."

That doesn't matter, either. Then John blinks, and gets a good look at him this time, at his strangely blank expression and the room. There aren't actual candles, but the lights are dimmed, and it's extravagant in a way subtle enough to work its way under the skin.

Oh. He should have guessed Harold would be a _romantic._

He swallows past an indeterminable ache. It's normal in a way that it can't be, and good in a way he never thought he could have. "It looks perfect as it is," he manages.

Harold's shoulders go down another notch and he pulls out a chair. John steps forward, and stops.

The thing is-- Harold's a romantic, and John expects sniper nests in the rooftops of the houses on the cul-de-sac across the street.

"John?"

Harold's looking at him, smiling slightly, the small genuine one that comes too rarely. The meaning of it is unmistakable.

He can't remember what it's like to be courted. He barely remembers what it is to be loved.

"Is something wrong?"

"Excuse me," he gets out. He catches his startled look as he moves past him, the footsteps that follow then stutter as he clears the corner of the hallway.

The cold air cuts but it's too late to get his coat, and his keys are already in his pants' pocket.

(Pants to a suit that _Harold_ bought, keys beside another set of keys to an apartment that Harold gave him.)

The hum of the car and the splash of water against metal drive thought from his mind, even if that's not enough to ease the tightness in his shoulders, the clench in his jaw.

He drives until his teeth dully ache, until his shoulders hurt from the tension. Till the panic recedes far enough that he can think, can swallow in a way that doesn't make his throat clog and his chest constrict.

Fearless, he's been called, and he is, just never in any of the right ways. Jessica had been the only one who ever knew.

He's been trying to be better, in more ways than one.

When he gets back the house is dim on the outside, which isn't different from when he'd first arrived. The difference is the rectangle of blue light visible through the wide windows; the difference is the shadow set against them, drawn into familiar lines.

John sits in his car and watches him, until the cold grows sharp enough his fingers twitch to turn on the heat. Senseless, considering he's already got somewhere warm to go.

Harold's tucked into an armchair in the living area, a laptop on his lap with his back to the glass. He's not typing.

In place of what he can't say, John falls straight back onto what he knows. "You have curtains for a reason. Anyone could look in on the street."

His head jerks up. He takes him in, and John lets him. "It's a quiet neighborhood," he says after a moment. "And I assure you, I'm more than capable of closing them if I want to."

John, well. He can read between the lines.

"It occurs to me," Harold says, "that I might have told you the reason I'd asked you to come before you arrived."

"You don't say."

His mouth quirks up, faint but there, and it's enough that John can ease his way into the room. "Did you eat?"

"Food was not the foremost concern on my mind."

"It doesn't matter to me whether the order is wrong," John assures him.

"It does to me," he says quietly, and slides the computer off his lap as he stands. He looks at him, questioningly. "I assume you didn't come back just for your coat."

He says, "Thank you for waiting."

 

*

"How did you know I'd come back?" he asks, later.

"I suppose I didn't."

It's not that surprising, this faint, impossible hope Harold remains capable of. If he weren't, neither of them would be here. The surprising part is where he places it.

"I don't know what you're thinking," John tells him.

He misunderstands. "I'm sure you don't." The silence lengthens. Then he says, thoughtfully almost, "Why me?"

The reasons are uncountable. The reasons have reasons. John cannot voice any one of them without giving away every part of himself that belongs to Harold (and that is, unequivocally, all of himself.)

But he can set his plate aside, and come around the table to cradle the back of his head in his hand, leaning in to get the angle right, and tell him in the way in which he presses his mouth to his.

Harold will understand enough.

 

*

Nothing much changes, except for what does. If John can flirt now without hoping, and look at him without wondering, and brush his shoulders with his or gently check him at the hip or lean over him to look at something on the monitor with his chest pressed lightly to his back, and not feel as if he's trespassing, all the better.

It's easy when it shouldn't be, and difficult because they are still themselves. Harold works himself into a fugue most nights and John has a tendency to spend his own wandering, which means even when the cases don't stretch or John settles with a book in his lap against Harold's knees, they spend more nights apart than not.

Their sharp edges have grown dull but it's not enough to keep them from jabbing sometimes when they get too close. When they try to fit, and when they don't, and there are times John thinks it would be easier if they weren't the men they are.

Then again if they weren't, they wouldn't be here.

(Apology is inevitable which inevitably takes the form of one of the many books in the Library, left open near a place the other frequents and to a page dog-eared above words more eloquent than they themselves are.)

John thinks they're what Harold would call a 'work in progress'.

 

*

The blood on his sleeve is dark and dried. Not unusual, except for the fact that it isn't his.

There are certainties like gravity, and certainties like orbits, and there is certainty in the infinite amount of beginnings in a universe full of endings. John can only see one way through it all, a certainty of an ending he can't bear.

"Well," Harold says, contemplatively as his thumb catches over the lip of the bandage winding down from beneath his shirt, "It isn't as if it couldn't have been worse."

"Is that what you think," he says. It's not a question. It's as sharp as he intends, because for all their competence, they owe too much to luck. It's sharp because Harold's eyeing him calmly, placatingly even, as if he's not alarmed at the imminent collapse of the universe-- John's, in any case. As if he knows nothing of free fall.

Maybe it's the painkillers. Or maybe it's resignation, and John won't have that.

He crumples the square of cloth in his pocket over and over. It still puts him off balance how much he needs to have it, and each one Harold's left behind every time since-- how Harold had guessed that John would want that reminder, would even carry it at all.

He pushes out of the armchair that's been hell on his back. He's been waiting for hours, two hours then four and then six, waiting after a high strung homeowner getting (bad) renovations done tried to stab their inept contractor and got Harold by mistake.

The case hadn't even started any differently than the others.

"What," Harold says as John presses his face against his neck. He smells like stale air, like antiseptic and more familiar, safer things beneath. Harold's hand slides up his back, between his shoulder blades, coming to rest at the nape of his neck.

When John finally stands the motion tugs at his ribs, and when he hides a wince Harold catches his sleeve and tugs him back down. "Let me see," he says.

He unbuttons his shirt to the middle. Harold's eyes slide over John's torso, mouth going firm. John suspects he's a map of bruises. A geography of violence he'd rather Harold a world away from.

"We need to be more careful," he murmurs.

They are competent men, both, but that will never be enough.

"We will be," John lies.

Harold swallows, visibly, and then absently touches his side. He worries at those bandages again, and John thinks of millimeters, of certainties.

"Do you ever think," John starts, and stops.

He doesn't idealize what they do. He knows that they risk their lives saving humanity from humanity and all in the name of itself. It would be a lie to say he never questioned whether it was worth it.

It would be a lie to say he never considered abandoning the world the same way it had abandoned them, never considered being, just once, selfish.

He'd take Harold anywhere.

Harold says, "I do."

John manages to push off the bed this time. Unspent energy coils in his limbs, makes him pace, makes him restless with a panic that edges through his chest. Through the worst case scenarios playing out in his mind.

Harold watches him a moment before saying, "Come here." His hand ghosts across the sheets and he says, "Come to bed," as if he knows just how much John wants to.

It shouldn't take the knife-wielding client of an inept contractor to bring them to one of these unlikely points of convergence, but John's wasted enough time questioning his and Harold's unique brand of insanity to spend more on it now.

The sheets are cool and John presses up against him like it's instinct, and Harold lifts his arm to let him closer like it's second nature. His fingers splay across John's chest and John reaches up and holds them, because he wants to and because he can now.

They're getting, he thinks, better at this.

"All goes onward and outward," Harold says, eyes glassy from the painkillers as he stares up, up and he's not even reading from the book-- (and John won't ask him if he memorized this part of the poem before them, or after)-- "nothing collapses. And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier."

 

*

John thinks they're what Harold might call a 'work in progress', which is what he considers them, even if can't allow himself to consider what they would be on completion, what they could be in a future neither of them expect to have.

He can't plan for a future, and he can't look to an eventuality that waits at the end of a gun.

What he can do is carry out a perfectly planned moment, and when he settles again against Harold's legs with the words in his hands that will make Harold flush, and reaches the stanza about perfume and wood and breath and loveroot, and Harold sighs in exasperation and tugs lightly on his hair, he can spin Harold's chair to face him, and shift so he is on his knees between his legs, and reach for the first button on his slacks.  

(Walt Whitman wasn't nearly as much fun in college.)

 

III.

"How do you feel about flying?" Harold asks one night, when the wound on his side is a fading pink scar.

John looks at him significantly. "Depends on who's doing the flying."

He has the gall to be affronted. "Harold Gull has a perfectly valid license."

"Isn't Gull the one who ignored several severe weather warnings and flew into the middle of a storm?"

"As a necessary guise to warn an associate of an associate, yes," he agrees. "Although I'm not entirely sure what your point is."

"He's reckless and it's not the flying part I mind. More the crashing."

"Well." Harold's fingers track a vertical path along John's spine. "He's only reckless when it matters."

John doesn't fear no one coming for him, not anymore. He fears the exact opposite. "In that case," he says, swallowing down fear because he's learning how and because he has to, "by all means."

Harold nods thoughtfully. "Perhaps when there's a lull in the numbers..." he murmurs, dreamily almost, and John never knew this side of him, where he can be loose and transparent and can say John's name with wonder. "We could go to the Bahamas. I have a contact on the island."

"I hear the weather there is lovely this time of year," he agrees, as if he doesn't mean, _I'd follow you anywhere._

 

*

They don't crash.

Unsurprisingly, Harold loves the freedom, and he loves the ride; he's content as he fiddles with the dials, a switch here and a lever there and it's all a little more eager than John is entirely comfortable with.

Still, now that he isn't focused on drop sites and military tactics and insurgents waiting below, he's beginning to see the appeal. He doesn't need to have named himself after a long line of wild birds to savor the speed, and appreciate the rush.

John figures that that's the reason Harold had forgone commercial transportation. Boeing's got nothing on his De Havilland Beaver.

He doesn't actually get it until the trip back, when they skim clouds and he's looking down at Manhattan. At a city small enough that for a moment he can forget who they are and who they have to be, what they have to do when they come down.

It's too glib to call this feeling hope, and inaccurate to say it's optimism. It is, however, certainty, of Harold and of them, a rare surety in a world full of unsure things.

The radio buzzes in his ear. He looks over.

Harold raises an eyebrow.

"Alright," John says, loudly enough to be heard over the engine. "Take us home."

 

*

"You missed one of the best parts," Harold says, after, _after_ when John is loose and boneless and Harold's hand rests warmly on John's thigh.

"You _are_ the best part," John tells him, and he huffs skeptically, but he's pleased as he reaches over him to pluck the weathered book from the nightstand.

"It is not chaos or death," he reads, "It is form, union, plan-- it is eternal life-- it is Happiness."


End file.
